Threat from the North
by Micah the Prophyt
Summary: Set seven decades after The Last Olympian, a new threat arises led by an old enemy seeking vengeance. How will the gods of Olympus respond, and for that matter, who will rise from Camp Half-Blood to see this threat end? Rated T just in case
1. The Message in Blood

**Threat from the North - **A _Percy Jackson & the Olympians_ fanfiction

**Chapter One**

**The Message in Blood  
**

The laestrygonian giant pushed up on the top of the door frame, snapping the solid wood, as it squeezes into the small, New England home. It paused, smelling the air for signs of danger, pulled itself further into the room, then motioned to its companion. The second lastrygonion was a juvenile, a great deal smaller than the first - only half the size, and had no trouble moving through the doorway.

Humans had been killed here. Not a fresh kill, the elder lastrygonian could tell, but human. A delicacy.

The elder lastrygonian was about to tear the leg off one of the corpses when the juvenile squealed with alarm. The elder turned in time to see the juvenile get pierced by a silver shaft of light before it dissolved in a cloud of dust. The adult could not even process a reaction before it too was pierced by an arrow loosed from the same bow.

"All clear, my Lady," a feminine voice called. The owner of the voice, a young woman appearing no older than fifteen summers, with black hair in severe spikes, which clashed against a silver tiara, and intelligent blue eyes, stared silently at the carnage in the home's entry room. "Thalia?" a younger female voice called from behind her.

Thalia, daughter of Zeus, knelt reverently as a girl who appeared to be only twelve approached her. "My Lady Artemis," Thalia whispered with respect.

Artemis, Olympian goddess of the hunt, nodded her acknowledgement to her lieutenant. "What appears to be the situation here?"

Thalia stood and turned back to the dimly lit room, gesturing as she spoke. "Ophelia and Jeremiah LeGrange. Aged forty-two and forty-five respectively. No known offspring. Ophelia was a demigod: a daughter of Dionysus, Jeremiah, a mortal, heir to the LeGrange wineries in France. Both killed, their blood spilled about the room; although, it appears as though there is more blood here than there should be for two human adults…"

"Very astute," Artemis praised. She strode carefully into the room, not disturbing any of the evidence, as though her feet did not touch the floor at all. "Do you have any further observations?"

Thalia closed her eyes and inhaled deeply through her nose. "The smell of blood and death permeates, mostly blocking any other smells, aside from the stench of monsters. But the monsters are the most recent smell - those we just killed and perhaps one or two others. These bodies, however, have lain cold for more than three days. Monsters do not linger at kill sites. More than likely, they were merely drawn by the smell and presence of death. No monster killed these two humans."

"Go on…"

"I smell…hints of steel…celestial bronze…magic…and…something else," Thalia paused, cocking her head to the side in slight confusion. "It almost smells like…(sniff)…honey?"

Artemis frowned. "Honey?…Obviously, they were murdered by one or more demigod wielding steel and celestial bronze. However, the scent of honey confuses me…Have Guinevere record everything here, then we shall purge this place with fire."

"Aye, my Lady," Thalia said, bowing her head and turning to go. Before Thalia left, Artemis stopped her. "I shall be bringing this incident up at the next solstice council."

"Are you sure, my Lady? The winter solstice is still four months off. Any chance of a pantheon-sanctioned hunt succeeding will be gone by then."

"I know…but it cannot be helped…" Artemis remained a moment longer as Thalia left, staring at the strange symbols splattered on one wall in the victims' blood.

(Inscribed on the wall is a single word in runes: REVENGE)

**Author's note:**

_Apologies to everyone who expected a group of symbols after that last punctuation, but unfortunately the runic font I downloaded will not translate over to this website...*sigh* so, I have a solution. If you'd like to see what "revenge" looks like in the Elder Futhark, just send me a message and I'll get you a link to the saved image in my photobucket._

_Thanks to Crazytop14 for her assistance and moral support in making this happen._

_Please be gentle in any reviews and comments. As always, constructive criticism is welcome and encouraged._

**Disclaimer:**

I do not own rights Percy Jackson & the Olympians, or any characters thereof. I just like the books.


	2. Tea Time Terror

**Threat from the North - a** _Percy Jackson & the Olympians_ **tale**

**[WARNING: this is NOT a delightful chapter]**

Chapter 2 - Tea Time Terror

_Knoxville, Iowa_

_Three weeks until Autumnal Equinox_

She sat at the edge of the playground's sandbox, happily serving tea to a rag doll from a plastic, pink-and-white teacup. A normal, sunny day. A normal playground full of happy children and their fathers. A normal, seven year-old girl…Or so one would think at first glance.

"Would you like some more tea, Miss Dugan?" she asked sweetly. After waiting a second or two in silence, the girl mimicked pouring tea into the doll's cup from an imaginary pot before taking a sip from her own cup.

"What was that, Miss Dugan?" she asked, cocking her head to the side, which caused her bouncy ebon curls to sway like a pendulum. She giggled, a musical sound that carried across the playground against the wind. "Oh, you naughty girl! You know as well as I do Arthur will not be joining us."

She giggled quietly into her cup, this time cut short as the pale, grandmotherly doll was pulled from its seated position on the sand by the twine noose wrapped around its neck. "Hey! Give her back!" The girl's pale grey eyes flashed upward. Her ivory cheeks flushed with anger, quickly draining to match her eyes as she looked upon the captor of her doll.

"Sssuch exquisssite craftsssmanssship," the snake-woman hissed over her forked tongue. "Did your mother make thisss?"

The girl shook her head in the negative.

"You father, perhapsss?"

The girl again shook her head. "I d-did…"

"Sssuch a talented morsssel…pity…" The _dracaena _dropped the rag doll of Eva Dugan and lunged for the girl, who closed her eyes, tripping backwards and screaming. The scream merely a reflex action, for suddenly, the girl was not afraid. Not when the sandbox emptied into a pit crawling with skeletons. Not when those skeletons dragged the _dracaena_ down into the earth screaming. Not even when one skeleton remained behind for a moment, picked up and dusted off the fallen rag doll, and returned it to her before vanishing into the earth along with its brethren.

Activity in the playground came to a halt as all eyes turned to the girl. "Hollie!" a woman cried, her voice breaking in a mixture of fear and concern.

"Mommy?" the girl - Hollie - called, searching for the source of the voice. "Mommy?!"

Two of the older children who had been playing on the monkey bars earlier, a girl with fiery red hair and a boy with dusty brown hair, had Hollie's mother by the shoulders, forced into a kneeling position. An older man with a ruggedly handsome face and peppery black hair held a strange thing against the back of the woman's neck. It looked like the ax that the nice fireman next door owned, but it was a LOT bigger. The remainder of the playground's inhabitants were drawing what looked, to the girl, like big letter openers, more ax-things, pointy sticks, and coat hangers from hiding places in the playground mulch and underneath the playground equipment.

The handsome man spoke, addressing Hollie. "We do not wish harm on your mother. We just want you to come with us, daughter of Hades."

The playground began to inch towards her. Hollie did not have any idea who these people were, who Hay-deeze was, or why they wanted to hurt her mommy. She looked around in a panic, barely noticing that all the boys and girls had strange marks on their faces and on the things in their hands, almost like block letters, but they didn't look right. She took a tentative step backward, clutching her doll close to her chest. "Mommy…" she murmured, her eyes brimming with tears.

As she looked at her mother's tear-streaked face, she could smell the trees more acutely. Her mother shook her head and mouthed: "Go!"

"Silence, woman!" the ax-man shouted, his face contorting ugly in rage as he struck her across the face.

Hollie's mother glared up at him with fire in her eyes, the left already beginning to swell, and spit in the man's face. As the spittle struck him, a small hand slipped into Hollie's. A girl no older than she, with thick curly brown hair and eyes that danced, stood just behind her. "Come on!" she whispered. "We have to go. There's nothing you can do for her right now."

Hollie sniffled and nodded, squeezing the girl's hand. The girl turned and sprinted away from the playground in the blink of eyes, practically carrying Hollie.

The man and children in the playground stopped moving and stared at the spot where Hollie seemed to have vanished. The ax-man snarled angrily. "You!" he pointed at the boy holding Hollie's mother. "Kill the wench then take scouts to their home. The rest of you: find the girl. I must return and report our failure to the jarl."

Five boys and seven girls remained at the playground with the appointed executioner. The rest split up in teams of three and began to leave in different directions. Hollie's mother did not scream or flinch as the ax blade descended…

* * *

_Disclaimer:_ Percy Jackson & the Olympians _is Copyright Rick Riordan and Disney's Hyperion Books, New York. I do not own rights to any of his characters, locations, or events._

_Hollie is the imaginative "love child" of myself and Crazytop14. Her name comes from the German word "holle", meaning "hell" in English. As stated, she is a daughter of Hades. The little girl who escapes with Hollie is copyright me and Crazytop14._

_Eva Dugan, the doll, was a real person. In the late 1920s, she murdered her neighbor, Arthur Mathis, age 65, at his ranch. In 1927, she waqs found guilty of first-degree murder, at the age of 43. On February 21, 1930, she was hanged.. The executioner misjudged the distance her body would have to fall so that the weight only broke her neck. When her body dropped, the weight and force snapped her head clean off. Five official witnesses fainted. Her execution led to Arizona adopting the gas chamber as the method for execution on the grounds that it was "more humane".  
_

_"jarl" (pronounced yarl) is the old Norse word for "chief".  
_

_Knoxville, Iowa, is a real location, approximately 39 miles southeast of Des Moines. My best friend grew up there. Her character will be showing up in a later chapter._

_As always, please leave reviews and comments upon reading. Writers are insecure by nature (I am anyways), positive reaction to our product is always a surefire way to get more of the same._

_We're still looking for a few characters to fill major roles in _Threat from the North. _So, if you've got a son of Athena, daughter of Aphrodite, or son/daughter of Hephaestus laying around gathering dust, send them my way and we'll incorporate them in the story._


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